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Title: If A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, Then What Do These Memes Say? (Parts VIII & I)
Source:
The Potters Clay
URL Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa6ulv9aQno
Published: Oct 10, 2018
Author: The Potters Clay
Post Date: 2019-10-07 12:02:10 by Liberator
Keywords: Truth, Memes, Hmmm
Views: 46221
Comments: 340
A little Meme action... Poster Comment: Get bored easily? No time to watch long videos? MEMES TO THE RESCUE! Short & Sweet. These are found at a Christian You Tube called, 'The Potters Clay'... These are REALLY good. Fun stuff. I promise. Spectacular AND clever. It doesn't matter what your core belief is; you will come upon several memes that will stop you dead in your tracks and challenge you. (STRONG SUGGESTION: To adjust and slow these memes down, go to your YouTube 'Settings', then adjust 'Playback Speed to .75. It will give you more time to contemplate the meme, since they move along pretty fast.) When you have the time, please give them all a look; I consider them a crash-course in Earth-Science Truth, Logic, and Reason.
If you haven't seen them, checkout the rest!
A Flat Earth Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - Part I
https://youtu.be/ptar5YtS_Sk
A Flat Earth Picture is Worth A Thousand Words - Part II
https://youtu.be/FchgUVA4SxE
A Flat Earth Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - Part III
https://youtu.be/Kth6X1g7bWk
A Flat Earth Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - Part IV
https://youtu.be/eVk3DIwf66c
A Flat Earth Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - Part V
https://youtu.be/qJAsGkP99rg
A Flat Earth Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - Part VI
https://youtu.be/z2a6g-nfQRU
A Flat Earth Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - Part VII
https://youtu.be/9Xsh2LJ1SvY
A Flat Earth Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - Part IX
https://youtu.be/X-D54GbpPjQ
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#12. To: Liberator (#0)
I watched both. I find them, to varying degrees, flawed. I'm not willing to rehash the science, at least right now. But setting science aside, I'd just speak to the conspiracy factor. If the earth is flat, then it's an absolutely enormous conspiracy going back some 15 generations to perpetuate this round earth lie. And the number of people that would have to be in on it in this day and age is huge. Not just NASA and astronomers, but meteorologists, navigators, and even satellite TV equipment manufactures. Every parent knows how it is, and so does everyone who's ever been a kid. If you tell one lie, you later have to tell another lie to cover up for your first lie. And then a 3rd lie to cover for the second. It goes on and on and eventually the whole house of cards collapses under its own weight. If the earth is flat, then the lie about the earth being round amounts to an absolute huge house of cards. Then again, I guess you would counter that the house has collapsed. For you. Fact is though, it's only collapsed for a tiny fraction of people. If you were right, this would have fallen over a very long time ago. And that's even ignoring the question of what perpetuating this round earth theory was ever supposed to achieve in the first place. If it was to marginalize the story of Genesis in the Bible, then they could have done that in any number of other ways that would be safe from being disproved, unlike something so basic as the shape of the earth.
Thanks for checking them out. Some of the memes aren't going to be A+. But some of them are. (Which meme or memes did you find "flawed" btw?) ...Setting science aside, I'd just speak to the conspiracy factor. If the earth is flat, then it's an absolutely enormous conspiracy going back some 15 generations to perpetuate this round earth lie. I think we can both agree that acceptance of Globe Earth was first making headway near the time of Galileo and Copernicus, which would have been @ the 1500s. It was not fully accepted by a consensus until the mid-1800s -- at coincidentally the same time "institutional Science" (controlled by certain Elites with an agenda) was insisting that "Evolution" was fact AND that Dinosaurs were older than Man. By the late 1800s and early 1900s Globe Earth was still being challenged strongly, believe it or not... The is is now a Publisher called, 'Dead Authors Society' that enables one to purchase a plethora of re-released old books. I'd read, 'Terra Firma: The Earth Not A Plane, Proved From Scripture, Reason, and Fact' (Author: David Wardlaw Scott). It was published in 1903. What especially fascinating about the book and perspective as written is the degree of knowledge about our realm -- even in 1903 -- style of writing, ideological and scientific battles at that time being waged over how our world should be perceived. (I think you and others would find it a great read.) Regarding any difficulty in catapulting any so-called, "Conspiracies" -- well, it's been quite easy. Institutional Science via schools were co-opted, where they *still* manage to convince the public via these secular humanist schools that 'Evolution' and 'Stone Age Man' is indeed a "Fact" -- even though it's been proven impossible. Regarding our realm, Institutional Science and its cabal have simply rigged the system and what they insist are "natural laws" like "gravity", formulas like "the theory of relativity" and one that explains earth "curvature" -- ALL of which not only remain 'theories' but are proven false. The number of people that would have to be in on it in this day and age is huge. Not just NASA and astronomers, but meteorologists, navigators, and even satellite TV equipment manufactures. Right. And many *would* tell you they already *know* the truth of the matter (or risk ostracization and unemployment. *I* can't believe even how much *I* assumed and denied of my own eyes.) Many of those memes can't be denied, btw. There are 8 more Meme Vids that provide further food for thought and additional "scientific" and observational contradictions FWIW. Every parent knows how it is, and so does everyone who's ever been a kid. If you tell one lie, you later have to tell another lie to cover up for your first lie. And then a 3rd lie to cover for the second. It goes on and on and eventually the whole house of cards collapses under its own weight. True. And Globe Earth remain the biggest, clearest case of adulthood Easter Bunny and Santa Claus (besides, 'Evolution, 'Big Bang', and "We from the Gummint and here to help.") If the earth is flat, then the lie about the earth being round amounts to an absolute huge house of cards. Then again, I guess you would counter that the house has collapsed. For you. Fact is though, it's only collapsed for a tiny fraction of people. If you were right, this would have fallen over a very long time ago. Aye-aye on all the above. (Except your last statement; The reason the PTB are freaking out about Flat Earth/NASA is...Knowledge of the truth is growing exponentially...And collapsing like many other things we've been told is "the truth.") And that's even ignoring the question of what perpetuating this round earth theory was ever supposed to achieve in the first place. (The Big Picture: please see my Post #17) If it was to marginalize the story of Genesis in the Bible, then they could have done that in any number of other ways that would be safe from being disproved, unlike something so basic as the shape of the earth. FWIW, besides Genesis, the shape of the Earth is also discussed in Psalms, Job, and Isaiah. But to your premise, multiple civilizations for thousands of years had already presumed its shape not only to be Flat, but having a Dome or Firmament over it. I didn't make that up; That's a fact. Again, "Globe/Ball" earth has only been advanced as a theory since the 1500s, and "fact" only since the mid-1800s.
This is all I see fit to respond to, with I'll do with a simple "of course". Anyone looking over long distances will have the impression the land is flat, with the exception of ships sailing over the horizon which might be mistaken for disappearing in the distant mist. There's no reason ancients living thousands of years ago should be considered a scientific authority. If we don't consider them an authority when they said that all matter could be subcategorized into one of: Earth, Air, Fire & Water, and if they didn't understand even basic things air pressure, bacteria, steam engines and the like, then why would or should they be considered an authority on the shape of the earth?
....and if they didn't understand even basic things air pressure, bacteria, steam engines and the like, then why would or should they be considered an authority on the shape of the earth? Several separate civilizations (or "authorities" of the day) ALL conceptualized similar configurations of our earthly realm as can be seen below. What are the odds?? NONE conceptualized any realm that was remotely a "ball" or globular. These concepts were more accepted even as recently as the 16th century. The elements of the earth are a whole different category. Why should the previous 5,000 years of mankind's knowledge of nature and science be invalidated? They weren't scientifically uneducated and ignorant of technology. In many ways it could be said that they were more advanced and regressed after the Fall of the Roman Empire. What of the Pyramids the world over? All the Chinese and folk herbal remedies and treatment? Roman sewer systems and aqueducts? And so forth. It really wasn't until the mid-19th century and beyond that man began harnessing "high tech" and discoveries on a macro level. Much of the biological by the mid-20th century. Why dismiss and invalidate all past civilizations' scientific credibility, discoveries and truth on the basis of realm concepts? Moreover, hasn't "modern science and tech" had to build on past tested scientific evidence, truths and technologies? "Science" has claimed a "Big Bang" and "Evolution" are "FACT"; Based on what? At the World's museums "Science" claims a "Prehistoric Man" -- that he indeed evolved from Apes. Based on what? Same of the age of fossils and dinosaur bones. Same of both the age of the Universe and alleged near-infinite size. By what criteria does "Science" claim "empirical evidence" in any of these cases? (HAVE those theories been supported by any evidence -- as per "Scientific protocols"? With respect to the actual shape of this earthly realm, I'd mentioned in a prior post that by the turn of the 20th century there was still a big battle raging over the actual shape of the earth. Serious question to you or anyone else: By whose authority, by what criteria IS the earth said to definitively be a "globe"? Because IF it's NASA, they and their credibility is already an ongoing problem and challenge. If it's flight, the horizon is proven to rise as flat -- whether the horizon at ocean level, the horizon at cloud-level, "space" at low-altitude balloon level.
You really are big on that "whose authority?" question, and not just on religious topics. I really don't have the time or inclination to continue on this. Not now. You are wrong on this. I am satisfied that you have chosen to believe the earth is flat, and that the power of that belief overwhelms the physical evidence of a spherical earth that is all around us. So much in this world wouldn't be as it is if the earth was flat, like flying from Chile to New Zealand in 13 hours at commercial jet speeds. That is such a basic piece of evidence that blows flat earth out of the water all by itself. TC posted this vid about the psychological term for describing an inability to accurately understand or comprehend certain subjects. I forget the term. I know I'm terrible at some subjects and good at others. One area I'm good at is math and, as it pertains to the flat earth subject, geometry. If you are not good at spacial comprehension, and it seems you are not, then that's okay. But I can, with full confidence and respect, say to you that you are so very, very wrong in believing the earth is flat. Every single argument for a flat earth falls flat on its face. Every. Single. One. The power we have to believe things that are not true is one of the most underrated powers known to man. Almost no one appreciates how true that is. And that truism is one reason why I cannot believe that God would judge us on what we believe, rather, what we do with what we believe. Best to you...
I am. But aren't you as well? After all, on who or what source shall we base "truth"? (or credibility?) You are wrong on this... I could accept your premise -- IF it were based on refutations. But all I ever see is THIS one by you: ...So much in this world wouldn't be as it is if the earth was flat, like flying from Chile to New Zealand in 13 hours at commercial jet speeds. That is such a basic piece of evidence that blows flat earth out of the water all by itself. It does no such thing. It's been this very same citation of flight times from Chile to New Zealand I keep seeing as THE prima facia "evidence" and a guarantee by you as well as Flat Earth opponents by search engines that our realm is a "Globe." Strange.) It is on this one basis ALL other evidence to the contrary should be dismissed?? Meanwhile, I've lost count of what must be hundreds of pieces of evidences I've submitted that prove the earth is NOT a "GLOBE," and still you claim, "every single argument for a flat earth falls flat on its face. Every. Single. One." Why engage in cognitive absolutism without examining the tangible, provable data, science, observations, and facts? Please refute ANY of the memes. Just one. One area I'm good at is math and, as it pertains to the flat earth subject, geometry. Alrighty then. Great! Then explain the following geometric out- of-the-way paths this (below). It is said that Santiago-Sydney flights (close to your examples of Chile to New Zealand, right?) go into the Northern hemisphere making stop-overs at LAX and other North American airports before continuing back down to the Southern hemisphere. Such ridiculously wayward detours make no sense on the globe but make perfect sense and form nearly straight lines when shown on a flat Earth map. Curious geometry: (200 Proofs The Earth Is Not A Spinning Ball)
The nearest airport to Sydney is Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD) and the nearest airport to Santiago is Arturo Merino Benitez Airport (SCL). Your flat earth map says Sydney to Santiago is 25,400km (15,782 nautical miles or 18149 statutory miles). According to round earth maps, the distance is 11,340km (6,250 nautical miles or 7053 statutory miles). According to this page, Quantas and LAN Airlines both declare the flight time is 12.5 hours duration. You can find other sites that go as high as 14 hours but the general range is established. Typical estimates for modern intercontinental airlines is 500mph with some a little faster or slower. The regularly scheduled non-stop Qantas flights are QF27 and QF28 (eastbound and westbound) and these are daily flights advertised as 12.5 hours flight time. You can verify flight prices and times and duration and live flight status of Qantas QF27 and QF28 flights by referring to these flight route numbers in any search engine. So a trip from Santiago to Sydney on Flat Earth Airlines (15,782 miles) would normally require the airliner to fly for 31.5 hours @ 500mph, in keeping with your Flat estimate . For Flat Earth Airlines plane to make that trip in just 12.5 hours, it would have to fly almost 1300mph. However, if you fly on Round Earth Airlines between those two cities - a distance of 6,250 miles - it will take you . . . exactly 12.5 hours. Just as the airlines have advertised for years. Keep in mind that airlines advertise 14 hours but they include at least a half-hour at both departure and arrival for airport delays, boarding, etc. The flight time is always less than what the airlines advertise. Also, some of these sites confuse nautical miles for statute miles so keep that in mind when you make calculations and make sure you know which number the airline is using. Airlines also have extra prep time for very long flights over the oceans and crew layover times that can affect the advertised flight time. Expedia: Santiago to Sydney non-stop flights Well, I'm kinda meandering here a bit. Let me just point out something: there can be no non-stop flights whatsoever between Sydney and Santiago using Boeing/Airbus airliners. They would fall into the ocean with empty fuel tanks if they tried to make a 25,400km flight. Aerospace-Technology.com: The top 10 longest range airliners in the world I could go on at length but I really don't want to contribute to making the world a stupider place.
The question of proof to the skeptic fascinates me, whatever the subject. So, let me ask you something. If I put you in the cockpit of a long-range airc aircraft. Say, flying due north from New York. So you could look out the fron front window the whole time and see the instruments, and gave you detailed flig flight map so you could follow along the route with your finger. Every few hour hours we would land to let you rest/sleep, etc., so that you always knew where you you w you you were in fixed reference to the ground. Then we took back off and continued the the the the route, flying over the north pole, then across through Russia, and down the othe oth othe other side of the world, map in hand, stopping to sleep. Then up again, over the th the the South Pole, and back up this side of the world to New York, would you then beli b beli believe that the world was round? What about if we went up further, into space, and you watched the world turn be below you, would you believe it then? What would it take to convince you to believe that the world really is round?
I always wonder if kooks would abandon their multiple kook theories if you thoroughly disproved their major kook theory. I think they wouldn't. Being a CT nutjob or full-blown multi-kook is a mental habit and deep-set personality characteristic. If you disprove one kookery, they'll just find another one. But then, I've never been able to put it to the test thoroughly. Which is what you are proposing.
I don't care about the "kook" label. I've heard many epithets hurled at me be because of things that I know that I cannot prove to others because I have no me means to do so. I am fascinated by adamant deniers - of God, for example - or, in this case, of the the spheroidal nature o the the spheroidal nature of the Earth. It does not make me angry, in the slightest degree, that people are Flat Ea Earthers. I just wonder what it would take to demonstrate to them that the Ea Earth is, in fact, a spheroid. I'm pretty sure that no amount of book waving for finger-wagging would do it, just a just as no amo just a just as no amount of that has ever been able to convince me of a single thing concer concerning Go concer concerning God and his existence. I required independent, empirical evidence of the of the sort of the of the sort that I would accept. Nobody provided me that, or tried, but God did. did. So I did. did. So I know there's God, because I know God. Since that time, others have vehemently wagged fingers and books at me telling me t me that I me t me that I DON'T know God, that I am delusional, etc., but I just laugh inside at t at them a at t at them and feel a little bit sorry for them, for reasons I needn't further elab elaborate. I've thought about it. I think the world is round because I don't see any pa particular reason to question it. I've sailed the world around, northern and so southern hemispheres, seen that the stars are different down under, seen what lo looks to me like a curved earth, watched ships rise out of the sea on one ho horizon and sink into the sea on the other. That this is because the earth is cu cur cu curved makes sense to me. The notion that there is a giant conspiracy...about AN AN AN ANYTHING...always sounds nutty to me, and makes me wonder why the person ch chooses to reject things that they reject. Still, it doesn't BOTHER me that people think the earth is flat. Heresy doesn't provoke any ire in me.
I would not say it makes me angry either. I've repeatedly said we are all challenged with certain deficiencies. The only thing that does irritate me in this and similar cases is when someone who doesn't understand something purports to do so while completely walling off what I consider basic logic. I guess it's when the time and effort I expend to debate and, what I would consider "enlighten" simply goes absolutely nowhere. That is when it becomes frustrating. I'm sure what I've just said is just as applicable to the my opposition as it is me on whatever subject. Many Christians say there is not enough faith in the world. I say the opposite. There's too much faith in the world. Faith in things that are simply not true. Our capacity to believe things is grossly underestimated and unappreciated.
For years and years you claimed to be a Christian. What is it that changed your mind? Or were you never really a Christian and you just said that because you were raised with Christians or something like that? Or you just said it without thinking about what it was? Seriously what changed your mind to believe in someone who suggests things to people while they are in a trance like state?
Tell me, Stone, how do you/we qualify a "real Christian"? How do you quantify what constitutes "real" belief? What does it really mean to "believe"? Vicomte13 just posted a bit about the meaning of the term concluding the difference with the term "faith" meaning "trust" more than "belief". I do not know about the tech defs of terms between languages. That's not my area, but I do concur that "belief", if it is to be on par with "head knowledge", regardless of whether the knowledge is correct or not, is not something that God cares about. The pseud-documentary called "The Secret", espouses a "Law of Attraction", which claims that whatever attitude you have in your heart is what will come to fruition in your life, whether good or bad. Leaving aside the question of how true that is (I think it is credible) I do think that describes what faith really is. It's not clenching your fists with your eyes shut trying to force your brain cells into aligning with a certain intellectual understanding, kinda like the child's fable story entitled "The Little Engine That Could" which I think we all know (a story that sure, is applicable for accomplishing challenging physical tasks) but it simply not applicable when it comes to understanding God. No, when it comes to God, understanding or acknowledging the truth doesn't come forcefully. It comes from being open minded, which you are not. You proved it by your prior post about how debating the question of 7+8=9 is a waste of time. In the same way, in your mind, debating the age of the earth is similarly a waste of time. You don't care why I and a great many people think it's far older. Unlike you, I am open minded. I always have been, even while I claimed to be a Christian. And my open minded nature allowed me to explore beyond the Bible. As a matter of theology, I subsequently found Michael Newton's work very credible. It fully qualified God as having all the patience the Bible talks about him having, in spite of the Bible's overall claim of the end of human life being the time when God's patience runs out. I find the theology of sin to be rather "messy" and always have, even while a Christian. Messy because sin must be done with intent, and intent is simply not qualifiable in many cases, particularly with very young children. Our comprehension of right and wrong varies abstractly. Under Newton, one's actual theological understanding of God isn't important. This solves the problem of God condemning people to hell for all eternity because of their sinful nature in spite of the fact that they may never had any opportunity to even hear about this one theological message about Jesus dying for our sins even though "Jesus" a name we are not spelling or pronouncing correctly as we have the wrong language. (But somehow, God knows who we mean anyway, right, so He allows us that leeway but not any other kind of leeway?) Sure you have your explanation about how it's okay for God to condemn people -- or allow them to condemn themselves. I, on the other hand, have an explanation for how that doesn't happen at all. If "faith" is indeed not mere head knowledge, but rather expresses actual trust, then I think I can say that I have faith that God doesn't act this way with non-Christians, and will not act that way with me. I will point out, as I have before, that over 90% of what Christianity teaches is compatible with Michael Newton's findings. Namely in terms of loving others, the Golden Rule, putting others first before yourself, loving your enemies, embellishing virtues and quashing vices. All of that is 100% the same. The only thing different is the theology of sin (though even there, there is some overlap), a final judgment after one life, the idea that our humanity is modeled after God, and of course, the question of how many times a soul can incarnate into a human body. And yes, I think it is accurate to say that Christianity does espouse that we did incarnate when soul merged with the human body. The difference is that Christianity says this can only happen once, while according to Newton, it can happen multiple times. In that light, "reincarnation" is not such a far-fetched theology. Michael Newton makes more theological sense. At least to me. Everything falls in place with this model. Contemporary accounts which are easy to find claim past life experiences, and the one account I've posted of several times of the young boy recalling being a pilot that was shot down and killed in WW2 being exceptionally compelling as he allegedly was even able to recall shipmate names at a veteran reunion. Sure you write that off as demons, but then again, you're close minded. You won't listen to any arguments that contradict the Bible, just as Liberator won't, it seems, listen to any arguments that the earth is round. I may not be a Christian, Stone, but it doesn't mean I don't have faith. God is better than anything you or I can possibly imagine. You may agree with that statement superficially, and yet you nonetheless still keep God in a box, not allowing him to be anything more than what the Bible depicts. You think that under God's watch and in accordance to a design that He signed off on, the vast majority of his children will end up burning in hell for all eternity. I say, God is better than that. And under Newton, God IS better than that. Our path is more than a single lifetime. Why shouldn't it be? And I have found what I believe to be validation in my own life that I have had past lives. No, not lives I can remember consciously, but experiences in past lives that would explain certain fears I've had in this life, and fears I am overcoming. Our journey is far longer, far more sophisticated, far deeper than a single lifetime could possibly offer. It all makes more sense.
A Christian is a human being who is indwelt by God's Spirit. That's basically it.
With that definition, under Newton, everyone is a Christian. Edit: Spelling that out, it's because all souls are born of God. It is that reason why we are considered children of God. It has nothing to do with our humanity (which is why evolution doesn't matter). What matters is our origins as souls, and all of us, as souls, originated from God.
In Christian belief, a person is born with a human spirit. However, that human spirit does not function the way it should, and that person experiences emptiness, which then causes that person to seek to fill the void, so to speak. That person will seek and try many things to fill the emptiness, but nothing ever truly satisfies. Oh, maybe for a little while that person will find excitement, relationships, possessions, ect. but in the end, they are still empty. However, when God's Spirit enters in, the human spirit becomes as it was intended, alive and in communion/fellowship with God. We have been created for this very reason, to have inward fellowship with God. If, as you say, all souls are born of God, why does humanity experience such supreme emptiness? Contrariwise, why does the Christian experience such supreme fullness, peace and joy, that wells up from a source not of a persons making, but of God dwelling within?
You illustrate the paradigm difference between conventional Christian belief and the Newton model I subscribe to. Not just Christian belief but also Judaism and Islam. All 3 of these faiths tend to phrase it as though the soul or spirit is an add-on to the physical body. A person is born "with" a human spirit. This expression implies the physical body is the primary identity of the person, of who and what we are, with the soul being a lessor component thrown in as a bonus. Under Newton, however, the soul **IS** the person, with the human body being the "add-on". It is the soul that defines the vast majority of our personal identity and even personality. Modern science has discovered DNA which has been accepted and presumed to be the defining element of all that we are, shaping our personality, favorite colors, virtues and vices. Under Newton, some qualities are indeed defined by our human structure, sexual preferences being one, but most of what we are is defined at the soul level. We are hybrid entities, mostly soul/spirit, but with a lessor human component, which would include capabilities of the human mind. The human body can be compared to a temporary rental unit instead of something that we own "for life" for the soul, and a rental unit that, once it stops working is disposed of and can be replaced at a future time. Stated another way, we do not say that shoes have feet, gloves have hands, or that hats have heads. We say feet have shoes, hands have gloves and so on. Saying a body has a soul is the same as the former when in fact it is a soul that may or may not have, or wear, a body. Certainly this is why fundamentalist Christians have a problem with evolution. Given the assumption that our DNA defines our full identity, it follows that if we are descended from apes, that apes define our origins. Under Newton, that is not a problem as our human nature is only incidental and does not define our true origins as souls. Under Newton, we have an alternate and more sensible explanation for why we are uniquely valuable to God over any other biological life form on earth. Fundamental Christianity, on the other hand, because it maintains our uniqueness revolves around human nature as being special and unique above all other life forms, has to impart something spiritually unique about the human body, about our DNA that other animals do not possess. It must rely on our humanity reflecting the "image of God", which is often inferred to be the human body itself. Under Newton, that's not the case at all. We incarnate into human form because the human body allows for social interaction which permits all manner of spiritual lessons to be learned. If intelligent life exists on other planets, we could just as easily incarnate into alien bodies for the same purpose. The human race is not who we are. It's what we use, and in spiritual terms is completely disposable, as is planet earth itself. I won't attempt to explain why emotions are experienced as it is something that can't be quantified, but I will say that any emotions associated with a certain religious faith do not necessarily validate the theology of that faith.
We incarnate into human form... So there is a God in the Newton model. What role does God play in your incarnation into human form? Is God central to your being? Or is God on the periphery, while you, your spirit, your being is central to your existence? If God isn't central to your existence, but is relegated to some ancillary role while you reincarnate, can you really say that this meets the definition of "God"? It seems that you have a self centered belief as opposed to a God centered belief.
In Newton's books, the actual term that is frequently cited for God is "The Source". My impression is that is the term repeatedly selected by clients to describe God but I won't swear to it. Obviously as an English, human term, it's definition is likely incomplete as, of course, English is certainly not the language of the spirit world. Rather, clients under hypnosis are using English to describe memories they are recalling of the spirit world. I'm sure you can empathize with that sort of issue in comparing English to Greek and Hebrew versions of the Bible. I'm not sure where you are going with that question, but it seems a very deep question and I'm not really inclined to recite the whole book. If you are asking about whether our purpose in life is all centered around God or centered around ourselves, I'd probably say it's centered around everyone, including God, and including ourselves. As we grow, all around us also benefit, so it's not like it's even possible to grow in a self-centered way that doesn't benefit everyone. Consider an analogy to be the average family. The life of parents in a healthy family are pretty much centered around the children, in helping them grow and learn wisdom and knowledge. Why then would it, should it, be different between us and God? The idea that we are nothing and God is everything, which is a frequent theme in Christianity, is inaccurate. If God created us "in His image", which is one biblical description I agree with and which I think is largely how things work in the Newton model, then to say we are nothing is inaccurate. We are special. Not because God arbitrarily decided that we were special. We are special because we, as souls, were born of God. We are special because of our origin and nature. And that has absolutely nothing to do with human DNA or evolution or anything having to do with planet earth.
When I look into the clear night sky I see mass (stars, planets, whatever) and wonder, how did this get here? When I try to look beyond the stars, I wonder, where does this end? I try to imagine what is beyond what I can see, and then what is beyond that, and what is beyond that! And I realize I am looking into infinity...and my brain bogs down. (Try it some time) My brain can't deal with something that has no end because I am a finite creature trying to comprehend the infinite. So my point is this: God is EVEN BIGGER than the infinite universe! He made the universe! Merely by speaking it into existence. Out of nothing. So when the Bible says we are as nothing compared to God...we understand that we are indeed "as nothing". Dust. The unsurpassed beauty of Christianity is that we know a God Who, although is All-powerful, All-knowing, Self-existent(Try to comprehend that), has condescended to not only dwell among us, but to actually serve us, and make a way for us to live with Him forever. That, Ping, is the love of God... God is infinitely more than the "The Source". And that is the kind of God you need and do not have...yet.
I can empathize with much of what you say. But I don't see the connect with your final statement. Neither term, "God" or "The Source", can adequately describe all God is. And this conversation isn't about describing all that he is. It's about how life works. You subscribe to a theology written many thousands of years ago, ascribing some divine truthful authority for it. I, on the other hand, subscribe to a more basic & human explanation for Biblical origins. You admit the universe is incomprehensibly large, and yet maintain it is comprehensibly young. I consider the universe both incomprehensibly large and incomprehensibly old. You insist biological life is too miraculous for any explanation other than divine creation to explain it. I say divine creation does not necessarily exclude utilizing evolution. You suggest God is infinitely more than what we can imagine (true) and yet would create a system that would see so many perish for all eternity simply for not understanding or believing a certain theology. I ask why it is God would make understanding a theology, which is something serviced by the human mind, a condition to enjoying eternal life when even mortal parents would not approve of condemning their own kids to death for not understanding, say, basic mathematics. But your final statement implies that you know me, and you really don't. You base the claim on my academic understanding. I think God is better than that. He really has to be, and the Newton model essentially removes limits on God that Biblical Christianity has in place. It works better in every way I can see. If God condemns me for all eternity because of my theological understanding, then He'll condemn me for being an honest man. If you know God as you claim you do, can you honestly tell me that that is something God would actually do?
I can tell you that there is no injustice whatsoever in God. If there were He would not be God. God is not capable of any wrong or imperfection. When He deals with mankind, including you, it is with perfect justice, perfect love, etc. Understanding is not the basis of Christian theology...it is by faith that God finds us acceptable. Child like faith no bigger that a mustard seed. Not everyone can "understand" because that requires mental capacity, but the capacity to have faith is found in everyone. When God created the Universe, He created it with age built in. Adam and Eve were created to be in the prime of life. Everything God spoke into existence was created with the exact appearance of the age He so chose. Some theologians speculate that Adam would have been created to be the age that Christ was when He died on the cross. You say I don't know you, true, but I know human nature. We are all pretty much the same. We all share the same fallen condition. We all need our Creator, to speak to us, to love us and accept us as we are, to restore us to beings that are fit for that eternal life for which we crave.
Okay, if that is the case, then even if the earth and universe were created just 6000 years ago, then there is no conflict with scientists saying it is billions of years old, because both could be true. Right? It seems child-like faith is accepting something as true without study or analysis, and that is what you are saying people must do when accepting Christianity.
Right...if your mind is in complete rebellion to God and you wish to reach a conclusion based on a false assumption: that the age of the universe is calculated by the expansion rate of the universe, that the distance between stars, measured from "The Big Bang", tells you that the age of the universe HAS to be billions of years old. It does not take much study or analysis to hear the gospel message, and realize you are indeed a sinner in need of salvation through Jesus Christ. Even a child can recognize that...can you Ping? And this is the gospel...
Hmm...so if God is manufacturing evidence for Big Bang (which has some theoretical problems itself), then isn't God the primary cause of people doubting the entire creation narrative? How can you blame Neil if he notices all this evidence of an old universe if God himself manufactured all that fake evidence to make the universe look old even though God supposedly only created the universe 6,000 years ago? Some people like to claim that Big Bang or evolution are evil deceptions by the devil. But Satan did not ever have the power to create anything, like light arriving here from millions of years ago. Or is Satan also a time-traveling demon who can travel back in time to create these illusions of ancient light or is Satan perhaps empowered (by God) to manufacture such illusions currently and on an ongoing basis to deceive us. Satan was not a creator at all, only a rebel leader who wanted to spoil God's creation plan on earth. It begins to appear that God may be the bigger deceiver, not Satan. Satan doesn't have the superpowers that some people wish to ascribe to him.
I would actually go farther and say that if God created the universe 6000 years ago to make it look like it's 13 billion years old, then it really IS 13 billion years old, and it's completely wrong to say it's only 6000 years old. Keep in mind, God creates time too, not just space. At least according to Einstein, who found the 2 pretty much go hand in hand. However, suggesting God would have fast forwarded universe creation instead of just waiting 13 billion years raises the question of why God would have not simply waited it out? Would we suggest that He couldn't bear the thought sitting around twiddling his thumbs for that long? Such suggestions largely ascribe human attributes to God (which is also done in the Bible, I contend, with descriptions of God as jealous and angry). I think those descriptions are done either naively or for the purpose of controlling the audience via imposition of fear of the almighty. (Politics and religion do mix, and often did, even in ancient times!)
Maybe that's the key test for entering the Pearly Gates: if you insist the universe is 13 billion years old, despite all the pressure to conform to creationism that it is only 6,000 years old, then you get into heaven. Or vice versa. Saint Peter: "To enter the Pearly Gates to eternal life and happiness, answer thou me this one question: How old is the universe? [John Cleese will play the role of Saint Peter in the movie version.] The bible does say that very few will get into heaven at all. "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way" and all that. For God to be God, he must exist entirely outside the space/time continuum. Those are artifacts of God's creation and he is not subject to them. If he was, then he would be nothing more than another artifact of his own creation. You can find a nice short PDF version here: The Jefferson Bible This was the version of the Jefferson bible which was distributed to members of Congress from 1904 through the Fifties. It was not known to the general public. A longer version of it with some of the background info and Jefferson's own words to explain it can be found here: Jefferson Bible, expanded It begins and ends with the following verses: . . . 62Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. Notice there is no virgin birth and no resurrection in Jefferson's bible. We should find more context for Jefferson and what he was trying to do with his bible. In an 1803 letter to Joseph Priestley, Jefferson stated that he conceived the idea of writing his view of the "Christian System" in a conversation with Dr. Benjamin Rush during 1798–99. He proposes beginning with a review of the morals of the ancient philosophers, moving on to the "deism and ethics of the Jews", and concluding with the "principles of a pure deism" taught by Jesus, "omitting the question of his deity". Jefferson explains that he does not have the time, and urges the task on Priestley as the person best equipped to accomplish it. Jefferson accomplished a more limited goal in 1804 with The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, the predecessor to The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. He described it in a letter to John Adams dated October 12, 1813: Jefferson wrote that “The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus Himself are within the comprehension of a child". He explained these doctrines were such as were "professed & acted on by the unlettered apostles, the Apostolic fathers, and the Christians of the 1st century". In a letter to Reverend Charles Clay, he described his results: Jefferson never referred to his work as a Bible, and the full title of this 1804 version was The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, being Extracted from the Account of His Life and Doctrines Given by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; Being an Abridgement of the New Testament for the Use of the Indians, Unembarrased [uncomplicated] with Matters of Fact or Faith beyond the Level of their Comprehensions. Jefferson frequently expressed discontent with this earlier version. The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth represents the fulfillment of his desire to produce a more carefully assembled edition. Using a razor and glue, Jefferson cut and pasted his arrangement of selected verses from the King James Version of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in chronological order—putting together excerpts from one text with those of another to create a single narrative. Thus he begins with Luke 2 and Luke 3, then follows with Mark 1 and Matthew 3. He provides a record of which verses he selected, and of the order he chose in his Table of the Texts from the Evangelists employed in this Narrative and of the order of their arrangement. Consistent with his naturalistic outlook and intent, most supernatural events are not included in Jefferson's heavily edited compilation. Paul K. Conkin states that "For the teachings of Jesus he concentrated on his milder admonitions (the Sermon on the Mount) and his most memorable parables. What resulted is a reasonably coherent, but at places oddly truncated, biography. If necessary to exclude the miraculous, Jefferson would cut the text even in mid-verse." Historian Edwin Scott Gaustad explains, "If a moral lesson was embedded in a miracle, the lesson survived in Jeffersonian scripture, but the miracle did not. Even when this took some rather careful cutting with scissors or razor, Jefferson managed to maintain Jesus' role as a great moral teacher, not as a shaman or faith healer." Therefore, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth begins with an account of Jesus' birth without references to angels (at that time), genealogy, or prophecy. Miracles, references to the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, and Jesus' resurrection are also absent from his collection. No supernatural acts of Christ are included at all in this regard, while the few things of a supernatural nature include receiving of the Holy Spirit, angels, Noah's Ark and the Great Flood, the Tribulation, the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, a future kingdom, and eternal life, Heaven, Hell and punishment in everlasting fire, the Devil, and the soldiers falling backwards to the ground in response to Jesus stating, "I am he." Rejecting the resurrection of Jesus, the work ends with the words: "Now, in the place where He was crucified, there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus. And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed." These words correspond to the ending of John 19 in the Bible. It is understood by some historians that Jefferson composed it for his own satisfaction, supporting the Christian faith as he saw it. Gaustad states, "The retired President did not produce his small book to shock or offend a somnolent world; he composed it for himself, for his devotion, for his assurance, for a more restful sleep at nights and a more confident greeting of the mornings." There is no record of this or its successor being for "the Use of the Indians", despite the stated intent of the 1804 version being that purpose. Although the government long supported Christian activity among Indians, and in Notes on the State of Virginia Jefferson supported "a perpetual mission among the Indian tribes", at least in the interest of anthropology, and as President sanctioned financial support for a priest and church for the Kaskaskia Indians, Jefferson did not make these works public. Instead, he acknowledged the existence of The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth to only a few friends, saying that he read it before retiring at night, as he found this project intensely personal and private. Ainsworth Rand Spofford, Librarian of Congress (1864–1894) stated: "His original idea was to have the life and teachings of the Saviour, told in similar excerpts, prepared for the Indians, thinking this simple form would suit them best. But, abandoning this, the formal execution of his plan took the shape above described, which was for his individual use. He used the four languages that he might have the texts in them side by side, convenient for comparison. In the book he pasted a map of the ancient world and the Holy Land, with which he studied the New Testament." Some speculate that the reference to "Indians" in the 1804 title may have been an allusion to Jefferson's Federalist opponents, as he likewise used this indirect tactic against them at least once before, that being in his second inaugural address. Or that he was providing himself a cover story in case this work became public. Also referring to the 1804 version, Jefferson wrote, "A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." Jefferson's claim to be a Christian was made in response to those who accused him of being otherwise, due to his unorthodox view of the Bible and conception of Christ. Recognizing his rather unusual views, Jefferson stated in a letter (1819) to Ezra Stiles Ely, "You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." After completion of the Life and Morals, about 1820, Jefferson shared it with a number of friends, but he never allowed it to be published during his lifetime. The most complete form Jefferson produced was inherited by his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, and was acquired in 1895 by the National Museum in Washington.[36] The book was later published as a lithographic reproduction by an act of the United States Congress in 1904. Beginning in 1904 and continuing every other year until the 1950s, new members of Congress were given a copy of the Jefferson Bible. Until the practice first stopped, copies were provided by the Government Printing Office. A private organization, the Libertarian Press, revived the practice in 1997. . . . Notice that Jefferson's bible was given to every member of Congress quietly for the first half of the 20th century. The general public only became aware of the Jefferson bible about 20 years ago; it was among those historical matters reserved for college-educated men, not for the perusal of the hoi-polloi of the public schools who were not even told that it existed. However, there were multiple versions of the KJV produced in the 1760s. The 1760 Cambridge edition, the 1763 Baskerville edition, and the 1769 edition. A key difference from the 1760 edition so popular in Britain and the even more popular 1769 edition that was so widely used in Britain and America is the rendering of Matthew 5:13 (chapter 6 verse 13 of Jefferson's bible). Let's compare the KJV versions of the 1760s to find out which one Jefferson cut to pieces. I conclude that Jefferson was likely using the now-rare 1763 Baskerville edition, said to be quite a beautiful folio version, to create his KJV pages. Baskerville was an innovative printer and designer of his own typefaces, a colleague of and greatly admired by Ben Franklin. Typographically and in word rendering choice, Jefferson's KJV is halfway between the 1760 and the 1769 versions so Baskerville's is the only likely candidate. How's that for some really pointless bibliographic minutiae? I haven't been able to locate an online copy of the 1763 Baskerville edition to verify this however. The only search results I get are for sales of that bible as a rare book in the range of $25,000-$40,000. And you can see the annotations and razor marks of just how Jefferson chopped words and pasted them together. And you can read the whole thing in only an hour or so. And Vic can even choose to read the passages in Latin, French or (1763?) KJV English. Even Jefferson's map choices are interesting. There is endless detail to pore over. Notice how the page before his title page contains a reverse image. Jefferson wrote it quickly in his bad penmanship and flipped the page while the ink was still wet which transferred some of the title page's ink to the preceding blank page, producing a limned mirror image of the title page. Charming. And without further ado, here is the full Jefferson Bible in full: Jefferson Bible by SethMarr123 on Scribd We should try to find even more context to Jefferson's views on Christianity. Jefferson's views on Jesus and the Bible were mixed, but were progressively far from what was and is largely considered orthodox in Christianity. Jefferson stated in a letter in 1819, "You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." He also rejected the idea of the divinity of Christ, but as he wrote to William Short on October 31, 1819, he was convinced that the fragmentary teachings of Jesus constituted the "outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man". On one hand Jefferson affirmed, "We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus, and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in his discourses," that he was "sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others," and that "the doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man." However, Jefferson considered much of the New Testament of the Bible to be false. In a letter to William Short in 1820, Jefferson described many biblical passages as "so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture". In the same letter Jefferson states he describes Paul as the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus". Jefferson also denied the divine inspiration of the Book of Revelation, describing it to Alexander Smyth in 1825 as "merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams". From his study of the Bible, Jefferson concluded that Jesus never claimed to be God. In 1803 Jefferson composed a "Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus" of the comparative merits of Christianity, after having read the pamphlet "Socrates and Jesus Compared" by the Unitarian minister Dr. Joseph Priestley. In this brief work Jefferson affirms Jesus' "moral doctrines, relating to kindred & friends, were more pure & perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers, and greatly more so than those of the Jews," but asserts that "fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us mutilated, misstated, & often unintelligible" and that "the question of his being a member of the Godhead, or in direct communication with it, claimed for him by some of his followers, and denied by others is foreign to the present view, which is merely an estimate of the intrinsic merit of his doctrines." He let only a few see it, including Benjamin Rush in 1803 and William Short in 1820. When Rush died in 1813, Jefferson asked the family to return the document to him. In 1804, Jefferson began piecing together his own version of the Gospels from which he omitted the virgin birth of Jesus, miracles attributed to Jesus, divinity, and the resurrection of Jesus – among many other teachings and events. He retained primarily Jesus' moral philosophy, of which he approved, and also included the Second Coming, a future judgment, Heaven, Hell, and a few other supernatural events. This compilation was completed about 1820, but Jefferson did not make these works public, acknowledging "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" existence only to a few friends. This work was published after his death and became known as the Jefferson Bible. While Jefferson did indeed include some Protestant clergymen as amongst his friends, and while he did in fact donate monies in support of some churches, his attitude towards Protestant clerics as a group and the Roman Catholic Church as a whole was one of extreme aversion. Jefferson's residence in France just before the French Revolution left him deeply suspicious of Catholic priests and bishops, considering them a force for reaction and ignorance. His later private letters indicated he was skeptical of too much interference by Catholic clergy in matters of civil government. He wrote in letters: "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government" and "[i]n every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." In 1817 he wrote to John Adams: In an 1820 letter to William Short, Jefferson wrote, "[T]he serious enemies are the priests of the different religious sects, to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is ominous." Jefferson intensely opposed Calvinism. He never ceased to denounce the "blasphemous absurdity of the five points of Calvin," writing three years before his death to John Adams, "His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever man worshiped a false God, he did. The being described in his five points is ... a demon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin." Jefferson expressed general agreement with Unitarianism, which, like Deism, rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. Jefferson never joined a Unitarian church, but he did attend Unitarian services while in Philadelphia. His friend Joseph Priestley was the minister. Jefferson corresponded on religious matters with numerous Unitarians, among them Jared Sparks (Unitarian minister, historian and president of Harvard), Thomas Cooper, Benjamin Waterhouse and John Adams. In an 1822 letter to Benjamin Waterhouse he wrote, "I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its conscience to neither kings or priests, the genuine doctrine of only one God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian." Jefferson named the teachings of both Joseph Priestley and Conyers Middleton (an English clergyman who questioned miracles and revelation, emphasizing Christianity's role as a mainstay of social order) as the basis for his own faith. He became friends with Priestley, who lived in Philadelphia. In a letter to John Adams dated August 22, 1813, Jefferson wrote, Jefferson continued to express his strong objections to the doctrines of the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, and the Trinity. In a letter to Adams (April 11, 1823), Jefferson wrote, "And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." In an 1821 letter he wrote: Jefferson once wrote to the minister of the First Parish Church (Unitarian) in Portland, Maine, asking for services for him and a small group of friends. The church responded that it did not have clergy to send to the South. In an 1825 letter to Waterhouse, Jefferson wrote, When followers of Richard Price and Priestley began debating over the existence of free-will and the soul (Priestley had taken the materialist position), Jefferson expressed reservations that Unitarians were finding it important to dispute doctrine with one another. In 1822 he held the Quakers up as an example for them to emulate. In Jefferson's time, Unitarianism was generally considered a branch of Christianity. Originally it questioned the doctrine of the Trinity and the pre-existence of Christ. During the period 1800–1850, Unitarianism began also to question the existence of miracles, the inspiration of Scripture, and the virgin birth, though not yet the resurrection of Jesus. Contemporary Unitarianism no longer implies belief in a deity; some Unitarians are theists and some are not. Modern Unitarians consider Jefferson both a kindred spirit and an important figure in their history. The Famous UUs website says: [I know, after a post this long, I never get to complain about long posts again. This is likely among the most complex HTML posts ever seen on LF, something I would never have attempted without my macro utility and my programmer's text editor with regex search-replace.]
That is precisely my view as well. Souls, as described in any theological context including Newton's, defy the very laws of thermal dynamics (i.e. energy can neither be created nor destroyed) in that they can persist eternally in spite of them operating. That implies to me that if they exist, they must, by necessity, consist of material that originates outside of our current big bang universe where the laws of thermal dynamics as currently understood do not apply. That would reasonably be construed as an alternate or extra/super dimensional universe, perhaps more real than our own. Newton's work does touch upon our universe being one of at least several. I interpret the work to theorize that when this universe runs its course and burns out, a new one can be made to replace it. (And we'll all be around to see it when that happens). But we, as souls, are not a product of this universe. But all physical life, including animals, plants and the human race, is. That is what makes us special. Not our human DNA. It's also why evolution doesn't matter. Christians who are hung up on evolution consider us to be special because of our humanity, which is why evolution is a problem for them.
Maybe they need a little more time to evolve. ; )
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestWhen you have the time, please give them all a look; I consider them a crash-course in Earth-Science Truth, Logic, and Reason.
#20. To: Pinguinite (#12)
I watched both. I find them, to varying degrees, flawed.
#21. To: Liberator (#20)
But to your premise, multiple civilizations for thousands of years had already presumed its shape not only to be Flat, but having a Dome or Firmament over it.
#22. To: Pinguinite, ALL (#21)
There's no reason ancients living thousands of years ago should be considered a scientific authority. If we don't consider them an authority when they said that all matter could be subcategorized into one of: Earth, Air, Fire & Water...
#23. To: Liberator (#22)
By whose authority, by what criteria IS the earth said to definitively be a "globe"? Because IF it's NASA, they and their credibility is already an ongoing problem and challenge. I
#24. To: Pinguinite (#23)
(Edited)
You really are big on that "whose authority?" question, and not just on religious topics.
#34. To: Liberator, Pinguinite, A K A Stone (#24)
Curious geometry:
The 747-400, the most common variant in service, has a high-subsonic cruise speed of Mach 0.85–0.855 (up to 570 mph or 920 km/h) with an intercontinental range of 7,260 nautical miles (8,350 statute miles or 13,450 km).[16]
So are 300-400 people per day just dying when their airliners crash into the sea and no one ever mentions it or NASA is somehow deceiving us all? Are you stating that these non-stop flights do actually fly over the United States at any time, day or night, and none of the passengers ever notice all those brightly-lit cities along the way or that huge continental land mass? There are 300-400 people flying these non-stop flights, generally on a daily basis and none of them ever notice they were flying over South America and North America on their way between Chile and Australia? Or is NASA just deceiving us all by getting Qantas to advertise these flights but they never actually take the passengers on those flights after they book them and pay for them? Boeing and Airbus take pride in manufacturing some of the world's longest range airliners. The Boeing 777-200LR - with a massive range of 17,395km - tops the list, followed by the Airbus A340-500 with a range of 16,670km.
#35. To: Liberator (#34)
#36. To: Vicomte13 (#35)
What would it take to convince you to believe that the world really is round?
#37. To: Tooconservative (#36)
#54. To: Vicomte13 (#37)
It does not make me angry, in the slightest degree, that people are Flat Earthers. I just wonder what it would take to demonstrate to them that the Earth is, in fact, a spheroid.
#60. To: Pinguinite (#54)
There's too much faith in the world. Faith in things that are simply not true. Our capacity to believe things is grossly underestimated and unappreciated.
#68. To: A K A Stone, Liberator, Vicomte13, watchman, Tooconservative (#60)
For years and years you claimed to be a Christian. What is it that changed your mind? Or were you never really a Christian and you just said that because you were raised with Christians or something like that? Or you just said it without thinking about what it was? Seriously what changed your mind to believe in someone who suggests things to people while they are in a trance like state?
Or were you never really a Christian...
#84. To: Pinguinite (#68)
how do you/we qualify a "real Christian"?
#86. To: watchman (#84)
(Edited)
A Christian is a human being who is indwelt by God's Spirit.
That's basically it.
#87. To: Pinguinite (#86)
With that definition, under Newton, everyone is a Christian.
#90. To: watchman (#87)
In Christian belief, a person is born with a human spirit.
If, as you say, all souls are born of God, why does humanity experience such supreme emptiness? Contrariwise, why does the Christian experience such supreme fullness, peace and joy, that wells up from a source not of a persons making, but of God dwelling within?
#95. To: Pinguinite (#90)
Under Newton, we have an alternate and more sensible explanation for why we are uniquely valuable to God over any other biological life form on earth.
#97. To: watchman (#95)
So there is a God in the Newton model.
What role does God play in your incarnation into human form?
Is God central to your being? Or is God on the periphery, while you, your spirit, your being is central to your existence?
If God isn't central to your existence, but is relegated to some ancillary role while you reincarnate, can you really say that this meets the definition of "God"?
It seems that you have a self centered belief as opposed to a God centered belief.
#99. To: Pinguinite (#97)
The idea that we are nothing and God is everything, which is a frequent theme in Christianity, is inaccurate.
#102. To: watchman (#99)
God is infinitely more than the "The Source". And that is the kind of God you need and do not have...yet.
#103. To: Pinguinite (#102)
If you know God as you claim you do, can you honestly tell me that that is something God would actually do?
#104. To: watchman (#103)
When God created the Universe, He created it with age built in.
Understanding is not the basis of Christian theology...it is by faith that God finds us acceptable. Child like faith no bigger that a mustard seed. Not everyone can "understand" because that requires mental capacity, but the capacity to have faith is found in everyone.
#105. To: Pinguinite (#104)
then there is no conflict with scientists saying it is billions of years old, because both could be true. Right?
It seems child-like faith is accepting something as true without study or analysis, and that is what you are saying people must do when accepting Christianity.
Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
#110. To: watchman, Liberator, Pinguinite, Vicomte13 (#105)
Right...if your mind is in complete rebellion to God and you wish to reach a conclusion based on a false assumption: that the age of the universe is calculated by the expansion rate of the universe, that the distance between stars, measured from "The Big Bang", tells you that the age of the universe HAS to be billions of years old.
#115. To: Tooconservative, watchman (#110)
Hmm...so if God is manufacturing evidence for Big Bang (which has some theoretical problems itself), then isn't God the primary cause of people doubting the entire creation narrative? How can you blame Neil if he notices all this evidence of an old universe if God himself manufactured all that fake evidence to make the universe look old even though God supposedly only created the universe 6,000 years ago?,
#121. To: Pinguinite, Vicomte13, watchman, A K A Stone, Liberator (#115)
(Edited)
I would actually go farther and say that if God created the universe 6000 years ago to make it look like it's 13 billion years old, then it really IS 13 billion years old, and it's completely wrong to say it's only 6000 years old.
Keep in mind, God creates time too, not just space. At least according to Einstein, who found the 2 pretty much go hand in hand.
Anyway, I just posted that stuff as a sneaky pretext to return to the Jefferson Bible. I'll flag Vic because I think he'll find some of this rather familiar, given his notorious past as a redheaded red-blooded Red-Letter KJV-Only Mackerel-Snapping Roman Catholic. He is little devious and his personality traits are not dissimilar to Jefferson's. : ) 1Now it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.
2And this enrollment was the first which was made when Quirinius, was governor of Syria.
3And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city.
4And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,
5To be enrolled with Mary his betrothed, being then with child.
63There laid they Jesus,
64And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. Wiki: Jefferson Bible: Early Draft Early draft
In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines. Probably you have heard me say I had taken the four Evangelists, had cut out from them every text they had recorded of the moral precepts of Jesus, and arranged them in a certain order; and although they appeared but as fragments, yet fragments of the most sublime edifice of morality which had ever been exhibited to man. Content
Purpose
Publication history
Nerd Alert!
It is said that Jefferson destroyed at least two KJV bibles to produce his own version and I noticed that these were not 1611 Authorized versions (old bibles) but ones that were new enough that they had two different letters for 's' and 'f' which were the same letter in the original Authorized Version. It also uses the letter 'u' which had previously been written as 'v'. One might conclude that Jefferson used the 1769 version of the KJV bible to create his own. But did he? I know that is a burning question in everyone's minds. LOL 1760 Cambridge "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be troden under foot of men." 1769 edition Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Jefferson's text
???"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."
Wiki: Religious views of Thomas Jefferson: Jefferson, Jesus, and the Bible Jefferson, Jesus, and the Bible
Anti-clericalism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-Calvinism
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, Materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and preeminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained. Priestley and Unitarianism
You are right in supposing, in one of yours, that I had not read much of Priestley's Predestination, his no-soul system, or his controversy with Horsley. But I have read his Corruptions of Christianity, and Early Opinions of Jesus, over and over again; and I rest on them, and on Middleton's writings, especially his Letters from Rome, and To Waterland, as the basis of my own faith. These writings have never been answered, nor can be answered by quoting historical proofs, as they have done. For these facts, therefore, I cling to their learning, so much superior to my own. No one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason in its advances towards rational Christianity. When we shall have done away the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus; when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since His day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines He inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily His disciples; and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from His lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian. I know that the case you cite, of Dr. Drake, has been a common one. The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers, to revolt them against the whole, and drive them rashly to pronounce its Founder an impostor. Had there never been a commentator, there never would have been an infidel. ... I have little doubt that the whole of our country will soon be rallied to the unity of the Creator, and, I hope, to the pure doctrines of Jesus also. I am anxious to see the doctrine of one god commenced in our state. But the population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be an Unitarian by myself, altho I know there are many around me who would become so, if once they could hear the questions fairly stated. Like many others of his time (he died just one year after the founding of institutional Unitarianism in America), Jefferson was a Unitarian in theology, though not in church membership. He never joined a Unitarian congregation: there were none near his home in Virginia during his lifetime. He regularly attended Joseph Priestley's Pennsylvania church when he was nearby, and said that Priestley's theology was his own, and there is no doubt Priestley should be identified as Unitarian. Jefferson remained a member of the Episcopal congregation near his home, but removed himself from those available to become godparents, because he was not sufficiently in agreement with the Trinitarian theology. His work, the Jefferson Bible, was Unitarian in theology ...
#127. To: Tooconservative (#121)
For God to be God, he must exist entirely outside the space/time continuum. Those are artifacts of God's creation and he is not subject to them. If he was, then he would be nothing more than another artifact of his own creation.
#128. To: Pinguinite (#127)
Christians who are hung up on evolution consider us to be special because of our humanity, which is why evolution is a problem for them.
Replies to Comment # 128.
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